I still don't get why people are bothered by the destruction in Metropolis. It happens ALL THE TIME in comic books and other media adaptations, and you don't see people complaining about it as much.

What would you expect to happen when two demi-gods go at it within a city? Plus, most of the destruction was done by Zod, not by Superman. People have to seriously stop blaming superman for things that he did not clearly do.

I would say there are two reasons people talk so much about the destruction in MOS:

1. There was so much of it, on such a huge scale

and

2. The tone of the movie was ultra-serious and realistic

Combine those two things together and I think we can start to see why so many people were shocked by the level of destruction. Yes, we've seen cities destroyed before in movies like this, but often there's a more tongue-in-cheek, humorous or "popcorn" tone.

MOS was avowedly an attempt at a deadly serious, "realistic" interpretation of Superman. As a result, when you see that much chaos and destruction, it starts to seem less like meaningless blockbuster action and more like depressing news footage.

So maybe the real problem here is that Snyder & Co. were too successful in their goals.

__________________
"Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society."—Lenin

the irony of all this is that for all the so called "controversy" that Man of Steel brought up, it still stayed more true to its source material than any previous adaptation since Superman 2, along with the pitches that directors had for the character in between.

the irony of all this is that for all the so called "controversy" that Man of Steel brought up, it still stayed more true to its source material than any previous adaptation since Superman 2, along with the pitches that directors had for the character in between.

That's a good point - MOS was essentially a darker, gritter mash-up of Superman: The Movie and Superman II.

But then that's the essence of sound business practice in Hollywood today - "pre-sold" properties. Why take a chance on an original idea when you can bank on nostalgia? Even when we have a first in movie history - the two biggest superheroes in one film - it's easy to see the very basic math of Warner Bros. executives:

"Batman is our biggest seller + Avengers is a massive success + first Superman film did OK = ADD BATMAN TO SEQUEL"

Love the idea or hate it, but creative considerations clearly came a distant second in the decision to add Batman to the mix.

__________________
"Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society."—Lenin

the irony of all this is that for all the so called "controversy" that Man of Steel brought up, it still stayed more true to its source material than any previous adaptation since Superman 2, along with the pitches that directors had for the character in between.

I was watching Justice League Unlimited last night and I was on one of my favorite episodes "The Greatest Story Never Told". The basic story is the JL is fighting Mordru but we follow Booster Gold who is stuck with crowd control…we see glimpses of this epic battle and at the end the city is pretty much destroyed while a gigantic Mordu lies smashed against a building.

Anyone have any guesses as to when we will get an official image of BatFleck?

__________________"Carpe Diem"

I got thrown out of a window! What's the f***ing charge for getting pushed out of a moving car, huh? Jaywalking?

My father gave me one piece of advice. He said "Always. .." No, he said "Never..." well actually he gave me two pieces of advice, I've forgotten the other one. But the important one is, "Never chase a man over a cliff".

Seems that way, for me I loved it but there's only so many times you can say you loved or hated something before it gets repetitive.

I'm also sick of hearing about the destruction thing, I mean who cares we all wanted to see Superman involved in a epicbattle like the comics, that's what we got. Films are an escape do we really have to dwell on whether or not the destruction was warranted or whether people got out of the building? Its all ultimately pointless.

There is some hilariously bad and inept armchair quarterbacking going on in this thread tonight...

I'm growing tired of the &quot;too much action&quot; complaint. For one thing, it's got no basis in reality.

The world engine disaster sequence itself is about ten minutes long.

Now then...

A minute and a half of that is the terraforming explanation/Superman's pod explanation/planning sequence. 40 seconds of that is Jenny/Perry/Lombard. 45 seconds of that is a build to action as the plane takes off and as Zod discovers he can control his powers, which is essentially tension building. During the disaster, there are also two scenes comprising about 75 seconds of Zod facing Jor-El in the fortess.

That said...

While the Jenny/Perry/Steve sequence does takes place amidst the disaster, four minutes and fifteen seconds of the screentime during the disaster sequence are not action scenes.

Interestingly, amidst all the action, fully 20 seconds of this is Superman rallying and standing up against the gravity beam.

Bottom line, in that ten minute span of action during the World Engine disaster sequence, almost half of it, about four minutes and 35 seconds, is actually drama of some kind or story beats without action in it. Which leaves five and a half minutes of action/disaster.

When the bomb is to be delivered to Black Zero, we get about two minutes of screentime which are the plane flying and the heroes trying to get the Kryptokey into the hole.

We then see 40 seconds of Zod attacking the plane, Superman confronting Zod destroying the ship and it crashing.

There are about 10 seconds of Faora &quot;action&quot; before she pursues Hardy. It is then about a total of a minute and a half from that point until the time when the threat is over, the Kryptonians have been sucked into the Phantom Zone, the last debris has fallen, and Superman and Lois are safe.

So let's be generous and say 2 minutes and 20 seconds of action, if we count the stuff where Hamilton tries to get the key in the hole (which I don't think we should, but whatever).

That brings us to a total of seven minutes and 50 seconds of action. Eight minutes roughly.

The final battle between Superman and Zod is five minutes and fifty seconds long. 30 seconds of that is a dialogue sequence with Zod shedding his armor. Twenty to thirty seconds of that is Superman's reaction to killing Zod and Lois comforting him. In other words, there are about four minutes of action.

Seriously? You're all *****ing about 12 minutes of action during the climax of a Superman film? Despite the fact that there's almost 7 minutes of drama/story to help balance it out?

By comparison, I believe THE AVENGERS had 13 minutes of action in its climax.

I don't know...seems like pretty standard blockbuster fare. Maybe some of you are easily exhausted.

It's a complaint that goes beyond these boards in case you haven't noticed.

Haha do people remember the first official pic of Cavill's Supes against the bank vault and all the intense scrutiny that went on, with people zooming right into his crotch region and convinced they found the color red declaring he still has trunks. And people trying to figure out the piping pattern on his legs and torso. Ah... That was like... 3 years ago...

I got thrown out of a window! What's the f***ing charge for getting pushed out of a moving car, huh? Jaywalking?

My father gave me one piece of advice. He said "Always. .." No, he said "Never..." well actually he gave me two pieces of advice, I've forgotten the other one. But the important one is, "Never chase a man over a cliff".

my gripe with mos was with the way snyder handled the aftermath after zod's death. it was the perfect opportunity for him to be superman and snyder blew it. he could have been searching for people in the wreckage, he could have been helping cops, firefighters, the armed forces removing said wreckage. he could have showed supes helping metropolis rebuild, he coulda had a shot of luthor from the back looking on at supes, in the similar fashion as osborn was shown in tasm without revealing him. instead we get a time jump with him trashing a drone, talking to his mom, and then heading to the daily planet where everything is as if nothing happened. the film and snyder himself wouldn't have gotten half the **** he's gotten if that were the case.

perhaps they're saving that for bvs but that just comes of as lazy and the end just felt rushed.

I was watching Justice League Unlimited last night and I was on one of my favorite episodes "The Greatest Story Never Told". The basic story is the JL is fighting Mordru but we follow Booster Gold who is stuck with crowd control…we see glimpses of this epic battle and at the end the city is pretty much destroyed while a gigantic Mordu lies smashed against a building.

I remember that episode. Reminds me of the Buffy episode when the Scoobies had to fight the Hellmouth, while Xander was somewhere else saving the town from zombies with a bomb.

Seems that way, for me I loved it but there's only so many times you can say you loved or hated something before it gets repetitive.

I'm also sick of hearing about the destruction thing, I mean who cares we all wanted to see Superman involved in a epicbattle like the comics, that's what we got. Films are an escape do we really have to dwell on whether or not the destruction was warranted or whether people got out of the building? Its all ultimately pointless.

Yeah, I believe the only building that actually came down during the fight was the one Superman and Zod actually fought inside, and it appeared to have been evacuated. There was some damage done to other buildings but I believe that's the only one that was destroyed.

And anyway, when Superman fought Doomsday in the comics, Metropolis looked like a nuclear bomb went off.